When I went to my car to go to work on Tuesday, there was a small bundle of flowers waiting on it, the stems trapped under the driver's side windshield wiper. They were delicate, white blossoms and they were covered in dew, like the rest of my car. I looked at them for a minute, finally deciding that someone must have made a mistake and left them on the wrong car.

They were too pretty to throw away and such a shame to waste, so I ran them back into my apartment and put them in water. Then, I headed to work at the museum and forgot about them until I got home. I looked at them when I ate my dinner and wondered who they were intended for.

#

On Wednesday, there was another bouquet of the same white flowers. This time, I looked around, like the person who had left them might still be lingering to see how their gift was received. But there wasn't anyone anywhere at six-thirty in the morning.

I added them to the first bunch in the tiny vase. Even though I was very sure they weren't for me, I appreciated them. It had been a while since anyone gave me flowers--high school prom, maybe. Still, I felt bad that whoever they were intended for wasn't getting them. Maybe it was some little old lady, who needed the boost. Or what if it was a token of young romance, as delicate as the white blooms.

I resolved that if it happened again, I would let the gift-giver know that they were targeting the wrong car.

#

On Thursday, there was another bouquet. I tucked them into the vase with the other two bunches. The first flowers were limp and soft. They would probably only last one more day. As they died, they left a spicy, woodsy smell in my apartment.

That night, when I got home, I typed out a note on my computer. It took me five tries because I didn't want to do it. I liked the little mystery around the flowers that I had unfortunately started to think of as 'mine'. But it wasn't right to let this mistaken identity continue; it was almost like stealing from someone else.

I love the flowers you've been leaving, but I think you have the wrong car. I just wanted to say thank you. They've been appreciated even if they haven't been getting to the intended recipient.

Leigh

I left the note under my driver's side windshield wiper at around eight, after the sun went down. Then, I went to bed with a clear conscience.

#

Friday morning, I almost didn't want to go out to my car and see it bare. I didn't realize how much of a pleasure these little bouquets had been for me. But, it was Friday. I had the weekend to look forward to. I had a new book to read. I didn't need flowers. I took a long, deep breath before I left my apartment.

I needn't have worried.

Another bouquet waited on my car. Color stole into my cheeks. I looked around again, but the street was empty. I looked back at the flowers. It was the same white blossoms but there was something new: one tiger lily. I touched the petals like I dare not believe that they were really for me. Then, like I had all of the other times, I ran them up to my apartment.

I thought of them all day. I imagined who might be leaving them. A neighbor? Someone I worked with? A complete stranger? Was it a joke or a message?

#

On Saturday morning, there weren't any flowers. Instead, there was a little book inside of a zip-lock plastic bag placed under my driver's side windshield wiper.

Flowers and Their Meanings: A Folk Tradition

I took it back up to my kitchen and opened the plastic bag. The thin book had two pages marked with post-it notes. I opened to the first one. There was a schematic drawing of a plant that exactly resembled the little white flowers on my car. It was coriander. I skimmed down to the paragraph about the meaning of the flower and heat flooded my face.

Lust

I flipped to the second marked page. There was a photograph of the tiger lily. My eyes went down to the meaning of the gift.

Passion.

My breath grew a little shallower and I had this ridiculous urge to look around me. Like someone must be watching my sexual response, in my own kitchen, to a bundle of flowers. I left the little book on the kitchen table and spent the rest of the day sneaking glances at both book and bouquet, wondering what I should do.

#

On Sunday morning, there was a bundle of coriander and a half-dozen tiger lilies. I flushed when I lifted it off of my windshield. An offer. A promise.

Underneath it was something else. Inside of another zip-lock bag was a painting that was the size of a postcard. It was the rendering of a house, brilliantly done in the impressionist style. So brilliantly done, I wondered if this was a professional artist--perhaps one I'd seen before. With a closer look, I realized that this was a house I knew; just catty-corner to my apartment building. It had been painted with the suggestion of the first light of the morning. I glanced up and looked over. There was movement in a second floor window. Just a flash behind the glass and nothing more.

I took the flowers back up to my apartment and put them in water. Then, I looked through my bedroom window at the building in the painting. It was an old structure, like so many in this area. I had looked at it a hundred times with an artist's eye: the gray and brown stone, the small windows with wavy glass, and the high privacy fence around the back yard. I had never seen anyone come or go from the house, aside from the crew that cut the grass.

I looked at the painting again.

I got my purse and moved my pepper spray from there to my pocket, just in case. Then, I left my apartment, glancing at the house again as I left my building, seeing another flash in an upper floor window. I took the short walk to the corner bakery and got four blueberry scones. Within ten minutes, I stood back in front of the pretty, stone house. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the front door with my little string-tied bakery box.

I knocked and the door swung open. I wanted to call into the house but breaking the silence seemed as destructive as breaking a window. It was too bright outside and too dark inside to see anything properly; I hesitated before I stepped into the void but curiosity got the better of me.

There was a coat rack just inside the door. It had a single trench coat and a thin, blue scarf hanging from it. Paintings lined the walls of the hallway I stood in. Rows and rows of renditions of flowers, the petals so velvety I had the urge to touch them, the painting so vivid I imagined the perfume. I saw the mark in the corner and stifled my gasp.

I knew this artist. Or at least his work.

I hadn't come far down the hallway when I heard footsteps. I looked up from the paintings, suddenly acutely aware that I was in another person's house. I shrank back towards the door and my hand went into my pocket with the pepper spray.

A man came into view. Longish hair. Glasses. Slight and pale, like he'd been inside too long. He was in his forties, maybe twenty years older than me.

"Am I trespassing?" I asked softly.

"No," he said. "I invited you here."

He stepped a little closer to me. He wasn't handsome in the traditional way; he wasn't tall or muscular or particularly well-dressed. But there was a nerdiness that I liked. And there was an intensity in the way he looked at me that left a tingle running over my skin. It was like he was studying me for my lines and color and composition.

"Would you like coffee?" he finally asked.

"I would. I brought scones." I held up the box.

I followed the narrow, dark hall to a very bright kitchen. Plants lined the window sills; I saw the coriander in bloom. In the backyard, dozens of flowering plants grew in an eclectic arrangement of pots. It was the time of year for tiger lilies. I sat the bakery box down on the table while he poured the coffee. "I'm Owen Gallagher," he said. His voice was musical.

"I know," I replied. He gave me a look that was almost fearful. "I recognized your paintings in the hallway."

I was familiar with Owen Gallagher's story, as was everyone even close to the art world. He painted flowers, always in acrylic. They were so lifelike and the lighting so ethereal, it had garnered him a following. Twenty years ago, he did gallery shows. Then, one day, he just dropped off of the map.

His agent handled all of his communication. I know because I helped organize one of his shows a couple of years ago at the Fillmore Gallery where I work. He produced maybe six pieces a year, which should have been career suicide. However, for some reason with his art, rarity fueled demand.

I had no idea that he lived practically across the road from me. I'll bet nobody but his agent knew his address.

He lifted my cup. "Sugar? Milk?"

"Neither." He handed me my coffee. His finger brushed mine and it sent a tingle up my arm. He laid out butter for the scones on a little dish. And perfect yellow napkins, like he was expecting a garden party. They matched the daisies on the small, delicate plates.

He looked at me again, studying me, it seemed. "Are you going to tell anyone that you met me?" he asked.

"Not if you don't want me to," I said.

He seemed to visibly relax. "Thank you."

I broke the string on the bakery box and handed him a scone. I took one for myself. I glanced at the plants on the window sill, then back to him.

"I would like to talk about the flowers you've been leaving on my car," I said.

He, again, seemed to study me but now, there was a faint flush on his cheeks and ears. "Too forward?" he asked in a low voice.

Lust. Passion. He didn't seem to want to back off from that message and I was unexpectedly pleased. "Not yet," I told him. "But why?"

He looked uncomfortable, but resolved. "Come see." He stood and I did, too. He led me up the narrow steps to the second floor of his house, which was a wide open studio. Canvases, in various stages of completion, lay propped against the walls or on one of the half-dozen easels. Not one of them was of a flower and they weren't in his usual realism style. Every painting was an abstract. I glanced at him but didn't say anything.

He led me to the window, which was just above and off center from my apartment bedroom window. He pointed at it. "You get dressed when it's dark out. Your curtains are opaque."

It was my turn to flush. "My goodness."

"I can't see much," he said quickly. "It's like a shadow show."

I thought that I was safe from peepers, since my apartment was on a second floor. The idea that someone had been watching me undress, no matter how little detail was involved, was disconcerting. Nor could I blame him for watching what I freely, albeit unknowingly, offered.

"I'm sorry for teasing you, like that," I said, the heat almost painful in my cheeks.

"I don't want you to stop." He gave me a long, intense look. "Seeing you makes me want to paint different things," he said, gesturing around the room. "But I can't finish any of them. I can't go back to flowers and I can't move forward."

I looked at his canvasses. The abstract style just didn't play to his strengths. Every piece of art he produced made you feel the texture and smell the perfume of the flowers. All of that ability and vision was lost in these attempts. There was one that was rushing color behind a female clearly intended to be nude. Another was a frenetic attempt at a couple in an embrace. A third, disjointed body parts: breasts and hands, and penises.

"Why abstract?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, sounding frustrated. "That's how they come to me."

I looked back at the paintings. The problem seemed reasonably obvious to me. "You're trying to paint the experiences you want," I told him. "But you don't have anything to draw off of."

He seemed to study my face again. His eyes were anything but casual. "I'm in need of a muse," he told me.

"Yes, you are."

The air between us was silk threads, pulling me towards him. His hand rose and inch and fell, like he wanted to touch me. Like he wanted to do something but habit held him back.

"Shall we go back to the kitchen?" he asked, his voice husky, his whole body tense.

"All right."

He led me back downstairs and we sat at his table, ignoring our picked-at scones and half-drunk coffee.

Lust. Passion. The man across from me might have been twice my age but he never left the house. All of his life experience happened through his window. He had insulated himself so that he never felt anything.

I considered that for a long minute. His long, sensitive fingers. His serious, uncertain eyes. There was just something about him that pulled me in.

I made a decision. I said, "Push your chair back."

He did as I said without questioning. The curious, heightened look on his face just made my heart quicken. I went out to the front hall and got that thin, blue scarf that hung there with his trench coat. Then, I came back to the kitchen, crossed the room, and straddled his lap facing him, sitting down slowly until he supported most of my weight.

"Do you want to try something with me?" I asked.

His breath was faster than mine. His eyes were dilated. He didn't try to touch me. "Very much," he whispered.

I held up the scarf. "You rely too much on what you see."

He met my eyes for a moment, then gave a quick nod. I covered his eyes and wrapped the scarf around his head twice, tying it at the back. His eyes were covered from the middle of his forehead to the bridge of his nose.

"When you paint your flowers, you don't just look at them, do you?" I asked. I unbuttoned my blouse and shrugged it off. I slipped out of my bra too. The spring sun warmed my skin and the ceiling fan moved the air just enough to make my nipples harden.

"No," he said.

I paused a moment, enjoying that he didn't know I was topless yet. It was delicious feeling.

"No," I agreed. "You make looking at a flower an experience. And that's because you know each one so well." I took his wrists and guided his hands to my bare shoulders. When he touched my skin, he pulled back a moment but then brought his hands back to my shoulders of his own volition.

"What do you do to get ready to paint a flower?" I asked.

His voice was uncontrolled. "I study them in different light." His fingers fidgeted against the skin of my arm but didn't travel.

"What else do you do?" I asked.

His lips were parted and I saw a quick pulse in his neck. I moved his hands from my shoulders to my breasts. He moaned when his fingertips touched my pebbled nipples. His touch was shivery and light.

"I touch them. The petals," he added quickly, like he was embarrassed. Like I wasn't the one sitting topless on his lap. "And I smell them. I study them in books."

"Have you ever tasted one?"

There was a pink flush on his face. "The edible ones. Violets. Coriander." His flush deepened when he mentioned the coriander.

I ran a finger over his lips. He sweetly kissed my fingertip. "What do I feel like?" I asked him.

He thought a moment, his hands becoming surer. "Tulip petals," he said. "Velvety and rich, like them." He pulled on my nipple very gently and I made a sound so he would hear my pleasure. "And soft, like a crocus, too."

I drew my hands backwards through his hair, careful not to dislodge the blindfold. Then, I slipped my hands into my lose jeans, into my underwear, and through my own wetness. I put my fingers under his nose.

"What do I smell like?" I asked.

He made a faint sound in the back of his throat. "Sex."

"You can do better than that."

He inhaled a deep breath. "Jasmine and powder and...something darker. Musk."

I touched my finger to his lips and he drew it in eagerly. "What do I taste like?" I said in a very low voice.

He seemed reluctant to give up my finger. "Salt and perfume."

"Your flowers are simple," I told him. "This, what you’re playing with now, is messy." I ran my hand down his chest, caressing his slender body over his clothes. I found the bulge in his pants and traced it with a light finger. He made a sound that begged me. "But messy is sometimes glorious."

I rubbed him through his pants for a moment. Then, I hooked a finger in his belt-line. "May I?" I asked.

"Please." His voice trembled, even on just one syllable.

I opened his pants and he helped me ease them and his loose boxers over his hips. He was completely erect. I glanced behind me at the table, flooded with the mid-morning light. The butter he put out for scones had started to sink in the heat. I dipped my fingers in the least solid part, scooped some into my palm, and buttered my hands.

He stiffened when I touched him, even though I was carefully gentle, even though he must have known it was coming. I stroked his shaft with two hands, slipping slowly up and down. I slid the palm of one hand over his head and felt his body shudder under me. I did it again and loved the sound of his whimper. His erection felt like a muscle.

He was very quiet, but he kept getting harder and more swollen. I slipped and slid over him, not the slightest drag between our skins. When he dripped, I used it too, making him even more slippery. He thrust with my pulls, his mouth open a little. His soft sounds and his hardness told me that he was nearly at his climax. I pulled a little harder, encouraging his pleasure. He came with a low, guttural moan and a tremor that shook the chair. I needed two of the little, yellow napkins to catch everything he gave.

When his breathing slowed a little, he reached for the blindfold. I stopped him with two hands. "I want to see you," he protested.

"How badly?"

He seemed uncertain. "Very?"

"Badly enough to go back to my apartment with me?"

He stiffened. "I don't leave here."

"You made it as far as my car."

"At night. When nobody was out." His body slumped like he was defeated. "It's very hard for me."

"I know. But that's part of the messiness, too." I brushed my lips against his. "If you want something, you may have to risk something. Look what leaving flowers on my car got you." I climbed off of his lap. I scrubbed the butter off of my hands with a napkin and said, "Don't touch the scarf until you hear the front door close."

I got back into my bra and my blouse. There was nothing keeping him from taking off the blindfold, but he didn't. I kissed him again, deeper this time, and he responded. When I broke the kiss, his lips followed me.

I let myself out of his house, closing the front door harder than I needed to. I crossed the road, went back to my apartment, and watched through the bedroom window. I sat there quite a while. But, his house was still at every window and I had no visitors that night.

Nonetheless, at ten o'clock, when it was time to get into my night clothes, I left my lamp on, as usual, and changed a little closer to the window than I needed to.

#

Monday morning, there was another bouquet of coriander on my car. Buried inside of it was an open rose in the deepest, richest pink. That evening, I looked up the meaning.

Gratitude

#

I was at work on Friday when I felt, rather than heard, the stir in the office. I was in the middle of arranging shipping for some very delicate pottery when one of the procurement officers stopped to talk to the curator near my desk.

"...three new Gallaghers? Not one of them flowers?"

"Sent directly to us, by his agent, for display at our digression."

"Show me," she said.

And even though I shouldn't have, I made a pretense about going to the water cooler.

Then, I slipped behind them and followed them to the viewing room. They didn't close the door all the way, so all I had to do was be quiet and peek through the crack in the door.

The first piece was a very realistic rendition of a melting plate of butter in morning sunlight. He captured it so perfectly, it felt like the painting emitted its own light. The second work was definitely the image of my bedroom window. My hazy, humid silhouette stretched to remove a shirt, taut nipples not sanitized. I had a throbbing reaction to it. The third was the hand-off of a coffee cup. A finger from one hand strayed to touch the other. My skin responded to the memory.

I backed away from the viewing room, almost relieved. All week, there had been coriander on my car, which hadn't been enough encouragement to make me stop by on him in the evenings. Now, I knew what he was doing and I was glad I hadn't interrupted him.

#

On Saturday morning, the coriander was on my windshield. With it was a small painting of a coffee mug. I hurried to get my purse. I was at his door in under ten minutes with another string-tied box. I knocked and the door swung open, like it had the week before.

I stepped inside. When my eyes adjusted to the hall's dimness, I saw him waiting at the other end, watching me.

"Your paintings were brilliant," I told him. "The whole gallery is abuzz."

"I was afraid you wouldn't come back," he said, like he hadn't heard my praise.

I took a step closer to him. "All you ever had to do was ask." He swallowed. I made him nervous now, and it was arousing. "Are you going to get me coffee?"

He blinked a couple of times, as if looking at me was like looking into the sun. "Of course," he said, turning for the kitchen. He glanced back at me to see if I was following, which I was.

I put the bakery box on the table and broke the string. I noticed that the butter plate was already in the middle of the table, already soft. It was next to the sugar bowl, the creamer, and a pot of honey with a dipper. Plates were laid out and bunches of extra little napkins. I wondered how long he'd been awake, waiting for me.

I dished out the scones while he poured the coffee. Sunlight poured through the windows, like they had the week before. He set a cup in front of me and we sat across from one another.

"Are you stuck again?" I asked him.

"No...." He drew the word out and ended it like a question.

"No?"

"Not stuck. Limited."

"How?"

"I have ideas that are...earthy. I can't get them out."

I paused for a moment, sipping my coffee. I kept my voice light when I said, "You need more experience."

That statement hung in the air for a moment. It sharpened that sense of being drawn to him. His quickened breath was the only real indication that he was aroused; I was getting better with his tells.

He reached behind him and into a drawer. He pulled out his blue scarf, his ears reddening a little, and pushed it across the table to me.

I didn't touch it, yet. "Take off your shirt." I said. My tone was more encouraging than commanding.

He suddenly looked worried. "My shirt?"

"And the rest of your clothes," I said. He didn't move. "Think of it as risk versus reward. What's the risk? That I'll humiliate you?" He nodded. "And what's the possible reward?"

He flushed and while I watched, took off his shirt. I picked up the scarf and ran it through my fingers as he stepped out of his pants and boxers. He was so pale. His chest was thin and so were his legs. He was already semi-erect. When he met my eyes, it was almost an apology.

"This is very brave of you," I told him. "You should sit."

He pulled up a chair and sat in it, his manner a mix of embarrassment and arousal. I did what I did before: straddle his lap and sit on it. I held up the scarf. He gave a quick nod and I tied it around his eyes like before.

"Last time, I made all of the decisions. This time you're going to help me. I think your problem is that you need to be more active." I reached behind me on the table and moved the honey pot closer. "Put out your hands," I told him.

When he did, I used the dipper to run a line of honey over his fingers. A little dribbled on his thigh.

"Taste your finger," I told him.

He did as I told him; I smiled at his disappointed expression. "Honey," he said.

"Yes," I told him. I took his finger, rubbed it across my lips, and kissed him, the sweetness of the kiss and the sweetness of the honey mingling, our lips sticking together just a little. He kissed me back more forcefully than he had the week before. We spent minutes just doing that.

I broke the kiss and said, "Hold out your hands again." He obeyed and dribbled more honey on his fingers. "You put honey wherever you want my mouth."

"Your mouth?" I liked the tremor in his voice.

"That's right."

His lips parted again. His penis was already more erect. His breath came so fast I didn't need to watch to notice it. I waited for him and he sat very still for almost a minute. Then, he brought the sticky sweetness to his lips.

I leaned into him and licked his lips with a long stroke of my tongue. I kissed him again, which was obviously what he was asking for. Then I sucked on his upper lip and his lower lip, teasing it with the tip of my tongue. His breathing was almost a vocalization.

"Where else?" I asked in a low voice.

He hesitated. Then, slowly, he rubbed honey on his hairless chest and over his nipples. His ears were bright red. I didn't make him wait. I crawled off of his lap, separated his knees, and knelt in front of him. I laved his the sticky trail off of his chest with a flat, full tongue, cleaning first one nipple, then the other. Then I sucked on each in turn. There was a tiny drip of honey on his sternum, inches lower on his torso, and I cleaned that away, too.

"Where else?" I whispered.

He didn’t move. He didn't seem capable of asking for what he wanted, even though he knew I was on my knees in front of him, even though his erection looked aching hard. His hands came to rest on his thighs and there they stayed, undecided.

He needed some help. "You dripped," I teased, bringing my tongue to the honey dribble on his upper thigh. His erection was inches from my mouth but I carefully didn't touch it. He moaned.

His hands still didn't move. I kissed over to where the right one rested on his thigh licked his index finger. He made another sound that was just pure want. He balled his hands into fists, then moved his hands to his organ, smearing what was left over the shaft. He didn’t even really do anything that could qualify as stimulating himself.

I treated him like my personal lollypop, using my tongue only, but using it well. I bathed him, root to head, paying special attention to the head. He vocalized in whimpering moans.

"Give me your hands again," I said. He obeyed without hesitation. I put much, much more honey on them. "Show me what you want."

He paused a moment and then handled himself with the sticky, messy stuff. It dripped down to his scrotum in viscous drops that glistened in the sunlight.

"Don't peek," I told him.

I licked his penis in long, lush strokes. I licked his balls too. He made sounds that made me never want to stop. When I took him in my mouth, his sticky hands clenched. My mouth was very wet from the sugar. As slow as I went, we still made drenched sounds.

I drew on him, not even bothering to tease. The muscles in his thighs clenched. He flexed into my mouth and I took him even deeper. His hands went into my hair, honey coating and all. He didn't try to direct me but I felt the pressure from his fingers wanting me to do more. I sucked harder and moved faster.

I knew he was going to come because his thrusting stilled. I didn't stop drawing on him, pulling on his, urging him. He came with a louder moan than the previous week. I swallowed twice, the bitter, salty taste mixed with honey.

When his fingers came out of my hair, the stickiness pulled. I kissed him. I knew he could taste himself. "You're going to need a shower," I told him. "I am too."

"We could, together," he said, so hesitant that I hated to say no.

"In my apartment?" I answered.

"I can't yet. I'm trying."

"I can see that in your art." I stood and kissed him again. "Don’t take off the blindfold until you hear the front door. Understand?"

"Yes," he said in a resigned voice.

I went back to my apartment and back up to my bedroom, still sticky. My hair clumped around strings of honey. I went to the window and waited. I must have sat there for more than an hour. Then, I saw a flutter at the window. Someone was moving in the studio enough to move the curtains. I smiled to myself.

#

Every bouquet of coriander for the next two weeks had a deep pink rose buried in it. But that was all. No indication that I should come back. No word through the gallery that any new art had arrived.

Then, on the second Friday, I felt the electricity go through the gallery. Gallagher had sent two new pieces and you had to see them. You so much had to see them that the pions, like me, were invited to the viewing room for a walk-through, so anyone in the gallery could answer questions about them.

The first was a close-up, of photographic quality, of breasts coated in honey, drops of the glistening fluid hanging off of the flesh. The nipples were taut perfection and amber beads caught the light in an almost otherworldly way. I hoped nobody saw my flush. Even though he had never seen them, it was a very accurate rendition of my breasts. The second painting was the blue scarf on the kitchen table in the golden morning light. The honey pot was spilled and the butter in the dish had sunk nearly to liquid. The detail was impeccable and the artwork had a tossed, sexual feel.

I loved them both right away.

#

The next Saturday, the coriander was on my car but it was the blue scarf wrapped around it that caught my eye. I didn't bother with my purse and I didn't bother with scones. I just went straight to his front door and knocked, the coriander still in my hand. When the door opened under the force of my knocking, I let myself inside.

He was halfway down the hallway already. "I made it to your apartment building twice this week. I just couldn't go inside."

"That is a wonderful effort. It deserves a reward," I told him. He flushed. "I don't need coffee this morning, do you?"

"No," he said. "I'm very awake."

We went into the kitchen together more out of habit than anything else. I unwrapped the blue scarf from the flowers and laid them carefully on the table. "Take off your clothes," I told him.

This time he didn't hesitate. In a few minutes, he was completely naked in the brutal sun, looking almost comfortable. I'm sure he must have seen my smile, no matter how I tried to hide it.

"Sit for me?" I said. He did immediately.

I sat on his lap, like I had the last two times. I held up the blindfold, which was still a little damp from the dew, and he nodded his assent. I tied it over his eyes like I had before.

"Stay there," I told him. I didn't know if he would be able to hear me undress. I tried to be quiet. It took me a moment to wiggle out of my t-shirt and yoga pants. I added my panties to them on the table.

I turned back to him and he waited patiently, his penis partially erect, like usual. I straddled his legs again and sat back down on them, flesh against flesh. His breathing picked up and his erection stiffened even more.

I leaned into him, brushing my breasts against his chest. "I'm trying as hard as I can to show you what I want. How I want to reward you for making it to my apartment door," I said, so close, my lips brushed his cheek. "But I need you to hear it from you."

"How?" he breathed.

"Tell me what you want."

I reached between his legs for what had developed into a very impressive display and ran it between my hands, only using the beading fluid on the top as lubrication.

"I miss the butter," he said. He didn't know how I smiled at him.

"Tell me what you want and we'll use something more natural."

His lips parted. His breathing was fast. His erection was iron. "Can I have you?" he asked. "It's all I've thought about."

"Tell me, Owen," I said.

He paused a moment, but only a moment. "Put me inside of you."

I moved forward on his lap. "Now, that's what I was waiting for."

I kissed him and he kissed me back hard. His hands went to my body, without encouragement. They found my breasts and played there, feeling the texture. I had his mouth and that was all I knew. I kissed him harder, holding is head between my hands.

I moved forward, hovering on my tip-toes, thankful his kitchen chairs didn't have arms. I positioned him, so his head was at my entrance. I ached for him, after so many weeks of teasing myself. Slowly, as slowly as I could manage, I impaled myself on him. When he was deep inside of me, and his every breath was a whimper, I said, "You feel so good."

I managed his thrust for a few minutes, caressing his chest, moving slowly, making sounds I knew he would hear. His hands found their way to my hips; his fingers dug in. Then his hips started to flex under me, finding his own rhythm.

"Can you paint this?" I asked, taking him into me as far as he would go.

"I'm going to try."

The way we moved was slow but satisfying. A deep, lingering want started to rise. I was wet and ready. I leaned into him again, my breath uneven. "I'm going to come on your cock. Okay?"

"Yes. Please."

I matched my thrust to his, until I couldn't stop the rise anymore. I fell against his chest, my lips against his ear while his thrust drove my orgasm long past when it should have ended. I moaned and gasped, knowing how my breath must have tickled him. I heaved a sigh when it was over.

His thrust slowed. "Don’t you dare stop," I told him.

He resumed his thrust. "I'm going to come."

"You certainly should."

His groan was loud and wonderful. He lifted me with his hips, not knowing how forceful he was in the throes. His heat coated me and I clamped down, hoping to milk the last of him. God, I loved his sounds. It was between ecstasy and injury.

I moved until he stopped twitching and then I slumped, my damp skin against his. I twined my fingers in his hair. "It's going to be hard to leave you, this morning."

"Then don't."

I stood, lifting myself off of him, letting him exit me, hearing his groan. I leaned forward, kissing him. "You know where I live."

"I want to see you," he told me, his hands not straying to the blindfold. "Now. Like this. Please, Leigh."

"You do see me," I told him. I cleaned myself as best I could and got back into my clothes. "Don't touch your blindfold until you hear the front door."

He groaned again, his frustration evident, but obeyed. I stood watching him for seconds: his penis glistening, his paleness blinding in the morning light, the color perfect in his cheeks and lips. I lifted my coriander bouquet off of the table and inhaled, liking the association of the smell with him post-coitus. Then I reluctantly turned, went down the dark hallway, and closed the front door hard as I left.

#

For a month, it was nothing but coriander and artwork. Gallagher paintings flooded the gallery, at least two a week, starting the Thursday after our last encounter. Not one even attempted to be an abstract. No matter what the subject matter, every image felt like sex. Even the curator commented.

On that first Saturday, when there was nothing but flowers on my car, I waited, hopefully, for Sunday. But Sunday was the same. The next weekend was a repeat of the first. I tried not to feel disappointment. I knew it wasn't fair to have expectations.

But, after a while, when the artwork kept coming, I wondered if it meant that he just didn't need me anymore. His block was gone. The thought was bittersweet. I didn't stop dressing and undressing with my lamp on, though I wondered if he still watched.

I was able to keep busy. It slowly became obvious that there was enough artwork and enough interest to do a small gallery show of Gallagher's new work. I was tapped to help with it. My role was small, but at least I could look at his art any time I wanted to without sneaking around. In the evenings, at the end of my work day, that was exactly what I did. That's how I saw it when the newest one came in.

It was my window again. This time, though, it was two misty silhouettes: male and female. The male bent the woman back, dancer-like, her shirt clearly tangled in her arms behind her back. He curled over her, his mouth hovering near her hard-tipped breasts. It was delicately done, how the bodies were solid and the clothes that hung off of them various degrees of opaque. It was his most aggressive, muggy, sexual piece yet. Someone had put it next to the other one of my window. It looked like a before and after picture.

When I went home that night, that painting was the image in my head.

#

It was the Friday before Owen's gallery opening, almost six weeks since I last saw him. For the past two mornings, I hadn't gotten any flowers. It stabbed me in the heart. I could have never predicted how it would hurt me; it was a shocking, almost breathless sensation.

Work kept my busy with last minute arrangements and tiny emergencies that had to be sorted out. Still, it was impossible not to think of him when I got into my car each morning, my eyes searching my windshield. It was impossible to not think of him at work, with his art all around me. It was impossible not to think of him when I walked into my apartment, it was so infused with the spicy, woodsy smell of coriander.

I had no one to blame for this. I was the one who set the conditions of our strange relationship.

I sat in my kitchen, looking at the bouquet that always sat there, now. It would last for maybe two more days and then my table would be bare. Eventually the smell would fade.

The sun went down and my kitchen grew dark. I only turned on a light when the flowers got hard to see.

The knock on my door made me jump. I even froze for a moment, wondering if I was hearing things. Hope flooded me before I could deny it. I hurried to my front door, flipping on a couple of lights along the way. I opened the door without even checking the peephole.

There he stood. He had a sports jacket on with jeans. I couldn't help but find it absolutely adorable that he dressed up to cross the road. He also had a bundle of coriander in his hands, which he offered to me in a nervous gesture.

Instead of taking the flowers, I took his wrist and pulled him into my apartment, closing the door behind me.

"Hi," I said. "I've missed you."

He shuffled his feet in a bashful display but I could tell that he was happy with himself. "I've missed you, too," he said.

"I'm very glad you're here."

"I am, too. Can I kiss you now?"

I smiled at him. "You can do anything you like."

He touched my cheek and leaned into me so slowly, that it was hard to wait for him. I lifted my chin just a fraction. When we kissed, both of our eyes were open.